A quantum information theoretic analysis of three flavor neutrino oscillations

Subhashish Banerjee,1, ∗ Ashutosh Kumar Alok,1, † R. Srikanth,2, ‡ and Beatrix C. Hiesmayr3, §

1
Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Jodhpur 342011, India
2
Poornaprajna Institute of Scientific Research, Sadashivnagar, Bengaluru 560080, India
3
University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Correlations exhibited by neutrino oscillations are studied via quantum information theoretic
quantities. We show that the strongest type of entanglement, genuine multipartite entanglement,
is persistent in the flavour changing states. We prove the existence of Bell type nonlocal features,
in both its absolute and genuine avatars. Finally, we show that a measure of nonclassicality, dissen-
sion, which is a generalization of quantum discord to the tripartite case, is nonzero for almost the
entire range of time in the evolution of an initial electron-neutrino. Via these quantum information
theoretic quantities capturing different aspects of quantum correlations, we elucidate the differences
between the flavour types, shedding light on the quantum-information theoretic aspects of the weak
arXiv:1508.03480v1 [hep-ph] 14 Aug 2015

force.

PACS numbers:

I. INTRODUCTION mode system, to that of a three-qubit system [16, 17]. In

The study of correlations in quantum systems has a
vast literature and draws its practical importance from
potential applications to quantum technologies such as
quantum cryptography and teleportation [1]. Recently,
there has been a move towards extending these studies
to systems in the domain of particle physics [2–21]. Neu-
trino is a particularly interesting candidate for such a
study. In nature, neutrinos are available in three flavors,
viz, the electron-neutrino νe , muon-neutrino νµ and tau-
neutrino ντ . Owing to their non-zero mass, they oscillate
from one flavor to another. This has been confirmed by
a plethora of experiments, using both natural and “man-
made” neutrinos.
Neutrino oscillations are fundamentally three flavor os-
cillations. However, in some cases, it can be reduced
to effective two flavor oscillations [21]. These elemen-
tary particles interact only via weak interactions, conse-
quently the effect of decoherence, as compared to other
particles widely utilized for quantum information pro-
cessing, is small. Numerous experiments have revealed
interesting details of the physics of neutrinos [22–27].
This paper asks what type of quantum correlations is
persistent in the time evolution of an initial νe or νµ or
ντ . It presents a systematic study of the many-faceted
aspect of quantum correlations. Herewith, it contributes
to the understanding how Nature processes quantum in-
formation in the regime of elementary particles and, in
particular, which aspect of quantum information is rele-
vant in weak interaction processes.
Three-flavor neutrino oscillations can be studied by
mapping the state of the neutrino, treating it as a three-
∗ Electronic address: subhashish@iitj.ac.in
† Electronic address: akalok@iitj.ac.in
‡ Electronic address: srik@poornaprajna.org
§ Electronic address: beatrix.hiesmayr@univie.ac.at
particular, it was shown that the neutrino oscillations are
related to the multi-mode entanglement of single-particle
states which can be expressed in terms of flavor transi-
tion probabilities. Here we take the study of such foun-
dational issues further by characterizing three-flavor neu-
trino oscillations by quantum correlations. This is non-
trivial as quantum correlations in three-qubit systems are
much more involved compared to their two-qubit coun-
terparts.
The present study of quantum correlations in three
flavor neutrino oscillations can be broadly classified into
three categories:
• Entanglement: We study various types of the in-
separability properties of the dynamics of neutrino
oscillations via the von Neumann entropy and in
terms of a nonlinear witness of genuine multipartite
entanglement introduced in Ref. [28].
• Genuine multipartite nonlocality: Nonlocality –
that is considered to be the strongest manifestation
of quantum correlations – is studied in both its ab-
solute and genuine tripartite facets, characterized
by the Mermin inequalities [29] and Svetlichny in-
equalities [30].
• Dissension: A tripartite generalization of quantum
discord which is a measure of nonclassicality of cor-
relations [31].
The plan of the paper is as follows. In Sec. II, we pro-
vide a brief introduction to the phenomenology of neutri-
nos and introduce the three-flavour mode entangled state
which will be analysed using information theoretic tools.
The core of the paper is Sec. III, where we characterize
three flavor neutrino oscillations in terms of various facets
of quantum correlations. We then conclude by providing
an outlook.
 2

II. THREE FLAVOUR NEUTRINO namely are in the ultrarelativistic regime, the flavor
OSCILLATIONS eigenstates are well defined in the context of quantum
mechanics [16]. In this approximation the survival prob-
The three flavours of neutrinos, νe , νµ and ντ , mix to abilities take the form
form three mass eigenstates ν1 , ν2 and ν3 :
!
X
2 2 2
∆m2kj c4 L
Pνα →να = 1−4 |Uαk | |Uαj | sin , (8)
4h̄c E
   
νe ν1 k>j
 νµ  = U  ν2  , (1)
ντ ν3 and the oscillation probabilities
Pνα →νβ =
where U is the 3×3 PMNS (Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa- !
2 4
Sakata) mixing matrix parameterized by three mixing X
∗ ∗
∆m kj c L
−4 Re{Uαk Uβk Uαj Uβj } sin2
angles (θ12 , θ23 and θ13 ) and a CP violating phase δ 4h̄c E
k>j
(C. . . charge conjugation, P . . . parity). Neglecting the !
2 4
CP violating phase (that has not been observed) the mix- X
∗ ∗
∆m kj c L
ing matrix can be written as +2 Im{Uαk Uβk Uαj Uβj } sin , (9)
2h̄c E
k>j
 
c12 c13 s12 c13 s13 where ∆m2kj = m2k − m2j . As in the neutrino oscilla-
U =  −s12 c23 − c12 s23 s13 c12 c23 − s12 s23 s13 s23 c13  , tion experiments, the known quantity is the distance L
s12 s23 − c12 c23 s13 −c12 s23 − s12 c23 s13 c23 c13 between the source and the detector and not the propa-
(2) gation time t, therefore the propagation time t is replaced
where cij and sij denote cos θij and sin θij , respectively. by the source and detector distance L in the above equa-
Therefore, each flavor state is given by a linear super- tion. This is a valid approximation as all detected neu-
position of the mass eigenstates, trinos in the oscillation experiments are ultrarelativistic.
X The allowed ranges of the six oscillation parameters,
|να i = Uαk |νk i , (3) three mixing angles and three mass squared differences,
k is obtained by a global fit to solar, atmospheric, reactor
where α = e, µ, τ ; k = 1, 2, 3. As the massive neutrino and accelerator neutrino data within the framework of
states |νk i are eigenstates of the Hamiltonian with energy three flavor neutrino oscillations. For normal ordering,
eigenvalues Ek , the time evolution of the mass eigenstates the best fit values of three flavor oscillation parameters
|ν i is given by are [32]
k

i θ12 = 33.48◦ , θ23 = 42.3◦ , θ13 = 8.50◦ , (10)

|νk (t)i = e− h̄ Ek t |νk i , (4)
∆m221 c4 ∆m231 (' ∆m232 )c4
where |νk i are the mass eigenstates at time t = 0. = 7.50 , = 2.457 . (11)
−5
10 eV 2 10−3 eV2
Straightforwardly, the time evolution of flavor neutrino
states computes to Following Ref. [16] we introduce the occupation num-
ber of neutrinos by making the following correspondence:
|να (t)i = aαe (t) |νe i + aαµ (t) |νµ i + aατ (t) |ντ i , (5)
|νe i ≡ |1ie ⊗ |0iµ ⊗ |0iτ ≡ |100i ,
with |νµ i ≡ |0ie ⊗ |1iµ ⊗ |0iτ ≡ |010i ,
− h̄i Ek t
X
∗ |ντ i ≡ |0ie ⊗ |0iµ ⊗ |1iτ ≡ |001i . (12)
aαβ (t) = Uαk e Uβk . (6)
k
Consequently, we can view the time evolution of a flavor
For example, if an electron-neutrino is produced at eigenstate α = e, µ, τ as a three-qubit state, i.e.,
time t = 0 then its time evolution is given by |Ψ(t)iα = aαe (t) |100i + aαµ (t) |010i + aατ (t) |001i .
(13)
Therefore, flavor oscillations can be related to time vari-
|νe (t)i = aee (t) |νe i + aeµ (t) |νµ i + aeτ (t) |ντ i , (7)
ation of the tripartite entanglement of single particle
where states.
i i i
aee (t) = |Ue1 |2 e− h̄ E1 t + |Ue2 |2 e− h̄ E2 t + |Ue3 |2 e− h̄ E3 t ,
∗ − h̄ E1 t i
∗ − h̄ E2 t i
∗ − h̄ E3 t i III. STUDY OF QUANTUM INFORMATION
aeµ (t) = Ue1 Uµ1 e + Ue2 Uµ2 e + Ue3 Uµ3 e , THEORETIC PROPERTIES IN NEUTRINO
i i i OSCILLATIONS
aeτ (t) = Ue1 Uτ∗1 e− h̄ E1 t + Ue2 Uτ∗2 e− h̄ E2 t + Ue3 Uτ∗3 e− h̄ E3 t .

If we assume that the detected neutrinos have an en- Separability or the lack of separability, i.e., entangle-
ergy of at least one MeV (the electron/positron mass), ment, is defined for a given state according to its possible

1
0.75
entropy[νe (t )]
probability (νe →νe )
0.5
probability (νe →νμ )
0.25
probability (νe →ντ )
~L/E
π 3π 5π 7π
0 π 2π 3π 4π
2 2 2 2
FIG. 1: Plot of the (normalized) flavor entropy (solid line,
red) and the three probabilities (νe → νe (pink, dashed) (sur-
vival probability, Eq. (8)), νe → νµ (lightblue, dashed), νe →
ντ (lightgreen, dashed) (oscillation probabilities, Eq. (9)) for
an initial electron-neutrino state |Ψ(t = 0)ie = νe (0) as a
function of the distance traveled per energy L/E.
factorization with respect to a given algebra [33]. The
separability problem is in general a NP-hard problem,
and only necessary but not generally sufficient criteria
exists to detect entanglement. For bipartite entangled
quantum systems it suffices to ask whether the state is
entangled or not. In the multi-partite case the problem
is more involved since there exist different hierarchies of
separability (defined later). We have defined the alge-
bra by introducing the occupation number of the three
flavours and our first goal is to understand the time evolu-
tion of neutrino oscillation in terms of tools for classifying
and detecting different types of entanglement.
The next step would be to take potential measurement
settings into account and analyse the different facets of
correlations in the dynamic of neutrinos. In particular,
we are interested whether there are correlations stronger
than those predicted by any classical theory. The cor-
relations are studied via two different approaches, one
based on the dichotomy between predictions of quantum
theory and different hidden parameter theories, and the
other one quantifies the various information contents via
entropies.
A. Study of the entanglement properties
Entanglement measures quantify how much a quan-
tum state ρ fails to be separable. Axiomatically, it must
be a nonnegative real function of a state which cannot
increase under local operations and classical communi-
cation (LOCC), and is zero for separable states. An
entropic function generally quantifies the average infor-
mation gain by learning about the outcome obtained by
measuring a system. The von Neumann entropy, a quan-
tum mechanical analogue of Shannon entropy, is defined
by S(ρ) = −ρ log ρ and is zero for pure states and log(d)
for the totally mixed state, where d is system dimension,
and the log function usually refers to base 2. The entan-
3
glement content can be computed by the entropy of the
subsystems since the full system is pure.
Considering the three possible partial traces of the
three-qubit state under investigation, we obtain a con-
cave function of the single-mode probabilities |aαβ (t)|2 ,
i.e., with ρj := Trall but not subsystemj |Ψ(t)iα hΨ(t)|α
X
Sflavour (|Ψ(t)iα ) = − ρj log ρj
j=e,µ,τ
X
|aαβ (t)|2 log |aαβ (t)|2
= −
β=e,µ,τ
X
− (1 − |aαβ (t)|2 ) log(1 − |aαβ (t)|2 ), (14)
β=e,µ,τ
which we call the flavor entropy. This function is plotted
in Fig. 1 together with the survival probabilities νe → νe ,
Eq. (8), and the oscillation probabilities νe → νµ , νe →
ντ , Eq. (9).
Since the flavor entropy Sflavour (|Ψ(t)ie ) is nonzero for
almost all time instances, the state is entangled. For this
and all the following plots, we use as units, the oscil-
lation period of an electron to a muon-neutrino. Since
there are tiny changes in the behaviour in one period
due to the existence of the third flavour, we always plot
two periods. When the amount of all three probabilities,
both the survival as well as the oscillation probabilities,
become nearly equal, the flavour entropy becomes maxi-
mal. Then the νµ and ντ oscillation probabilities become
greater than the survival probability of νe resulting in a
decrease in the uncertainty of the total state followed by
an increase, when the probabilities get closer. Next, the
uncertainty in the total state drops again and the pattern
gets repeated.
The entropy of all the three possible flavour entropies
are compared in Fig. 2 showing that for the muon- and
tau-neutrinos the entropy is non-zero for almost all time
instances. Compared to the electron-neutrino evolution,
the flavor uncertainty of the other two flavours oscillates
more rapidly and with higher amplitudes, reaching the
maximal value more often.
Let us now refine the picture by investigating the type
of entanglement in neutrino oscillations. A tripartite
pure state can be, for example written as
|ψk=3 i = |φA i ⊗ |φB i ⊗ |φC i,
|ψk=2 i = |φA i ⊗ |φBC i, |φB i ⊗ |φAC i,
or |φAB i ⊗ |φC i,
|ψk=1 i = |ψiABC , (15)
where k gives the number of partitions dubbed the k-
separability. If k equals the number of involved states, in
our case k = 3, the joint state is called fully separable,
else it is partially separable. An important class of states
are those that are not separable within any bi-partition,
and are called genuinely multi-partite entangled. In gen-
eral they allow for applications that outperform their
classical counterparts, such as secret sharing [34, 35]. It

should be noted that since a k = 3-separable state is nec-
essarily also k = 2-separable, k-separable states have a
nested-convex structure.
Among the genuinely multi-partite entangled states,
there are two subclasses known for three qubit states,
the GHZ- and W-type of states. In Ref. [28] a general
framework was introduced to detect and define different
relevant multipartite entanglement subclasses and refined
in several follow ups. In particular it has been shown to
allow for a self-consistent classification also in a relativis-
tic framework [36]. Generally, one would expect from
Q1Dicke (ρ)
= 2 |h001|ρ|010i| + 2 |h001|ρ|100i| + 2 |h010|ρ|100i| − h001|ρ|001i + h010|ρ|010i + h100|ρ|100i
p p
+2 h000|ρ|000i · h011|ρ|011i + 2 h000|ρ|000i · h101|ρ|101i + 2 h000|ρ|000i · h110|ρ|110i ≤ 0.
If this criterion is violated the state ρ has no bipartite de-
compositions, i.e., it is genuinely multipartite entangled.
The positive terms are exactly the only non-zero off-
diagonal terms of the W -state, |W i = √13 {|100i + |010i +
|001i}, with one excitation in the computational basis,
whereas the negative terms are only diagonal terms. Note
that these negative terms are all zero for the W -state in
the given basis such that only this state obtains the max-
imum value.
Obviously, this criterion depends on the basis repre-
sentation of the state ρ and has therefore to be opti-
mized over all local unitary operations. Indeed, taking
the “flavour basis” as the computational basis, Eq. (13),
the unoptimized criterion becomes
2|aαe (t)aαµ (t)| + 2|aαe (t)aατ (t)| + 2|aαµ (t)aατ (t)|
− (|aαe (t)|2 + |aαµ (t)|2 + |aατ (t)|2 ) ≤0, (17)
| {z } requirement of a full factorization, i.e., the additional fac-
=1
which is not violated for all times. Consequently, op-
timization over all local unitaries has to be taken into
account for each time point and is plotted for an initial
electron-, muon- and tau-neutrino in Fig. 3. We find that
the states at each time point are always genuine multi-
partite entangled if at least two amplitudes of the state,
Eq. (13), are non-zero, i.e., for almost all time instances.
The results depicted in Fig. 3 also prove that in the course
of the time evolution the genuine multipartite W state
(all amplitudes equal to √13 ) is reached. Hence, Nature
exploits the maximum genuine multipartite entanglement
in the occupation number basis.
4
a proper classification of different types of entanglement
that for a relativistically boosted observer, which causes
a change of the observed state, but not of the expectation
value, that it remains in a certain entanglement class. We
will therefore investigate this Lorentz invariant criterion,
though let us emphasise that we do not take any rela-
tivistic effects of a boosted observer into account in this
contribution.
The necessary criterion for a tripartite qubit state with
one excitation (“1”) to be bipartite reads


p
(16)
B. Genuine multipartite nonlocality
We now ask the question whether in the course of the
flavor oscillations, Bell-type nonlocality is persistent, i.e.,
there are correlations stronger than those predicted by
any classical hidden variable theory. For that we inves-
tigate the Svetlichny inequalities [30] which are a suffi-
cient criteria for proving genuine tripartite nonlocality.
In short, the idea is whether by measuring three observ-
ables A, B, C and obtaining the results a, b, c, the proba-
bility P (a, b, c) can be assumed to be factorizable as
Z
P (a, b, c) = f(ab|λ) · h(c|λ) dω(λ) , (18)
where f, h are probabilities conditioned to the hidden
variable λ with the probability measure dω. The fac-
torization, here chosen between the partitions A, B ver-
sus C, corresponds to Bell’s locality assumption in his
original derivation if considered for two systems. (The
torization f(ab|λ) = q(aλ)·r(bλ), which correspond to ab-
solute locality, is explored later by the inequalities (20)).
Then the necessary criteria for such a factorization of
the conditioned probabilities, qubit 1 and 2 versus 3, are
given by
a
I12|3 (ρ) =
T r ((ADC + AD0 C 0 + A0 D0 C − A0 DC 0 )ρ) ≤ 4 ,
b
I12|3 (ρ) =
T r ((AD0 C + AD0 C 0 − A0 DC 0 − A0 D0 C 0 )ρ) ≤ 4(19)
,
with D = B + B 0 and D0 = B − B 0 . Since we are
not interested in a particular hidden parameter model,
we also consider the two other bipartitions, namely 2|13
and 3|12, and take the maximum over them. In Fig. 4

we have plotted the maximum of I a and I b , over all bi-
partitions, for the time evolution of an initial electron-,
muon- and tau-neutrino. In addition, each data point
corresponds to the maximum of the optimization over
all possible observables A, B, C. In the case of an initial
electron-neutrino we find regions in the time evolution
when the criterion does not detect genuine tripartite non-
locality, whereas for the two other neutrino flavours we
observe a stronger oscillating behaviour. Summing up,
whereas genuine nonlocal correlation is largely present in
the time evolution, there are specific time regions when
it vanishes.
Requiring that for all three measurements a hidden
parameter model should exist can be revealed by the fol-
lowing set of inequalities [29]
M a (ρ) = T r ((ADC + AD0 C)ρ) ≤ 2 ,
M b (ρ) = T r ((A0 D0 C − A0 DC 0 )ρ) ≤ 2 , (20)
which are connected to the Svetlichny inequality by
a
I12|3 = M a + M b (see Refs. [30, 37]). These are the
Mermin inequalities and their violation is an indicator
of absolute nonlocality. Again we are interested in find-
ing a contradiction to any hidden parameter model, thus
we consider all bipartitions and take the maximum. The
results are plotted in Fig. 5 (including an optimization
over all four arbitrary operators A, D, C, D0 ). For all
times (except when the state is separable) the two in-
equalities are violated when optimized over all measure-
ment settings. This shows that assuming that the mode
I1 (A:B:C) = H(A, B) − H(B|A) − H(A|B) − H(A|C) − H(B|C) + H(A, B|C),
I2 (A:B:C) = H(A) + H(B) + H(C) − H(A, B) − H(A, C) − H(B, C) + H(A, B, C),
I3 (A:B:C) = H(A) + H(B) + H(C) − H(A, B) − H(A, C) + H(A|B, C) .
While the second of these expressions suggests a straight-
forward quantum generalization, by replacing the Shan-
non entropy by the corresponding von Neumann entropy
S(ρ) ≡ −Tr(ρ log ρ), the first and third expressions lead
to complications since the average conditioned entropy
depends on the basis chosen and on the choice of the ran-
dom variables A, B, C. Let us point out that in strong
contrast to the bipartite mutual information the tripar-
tite mutual information may also be negative. This is
the case if for instance knowing the random variable C
enhances the correlation between A and B. Following
the concept of quantum discord [39, 40], which quantifies
nonclassical correlations, in Ref. [31] two measures for
nonclassicality, called dissension, were introduced:
D1 (A:B:C) = J1 (A:B:C) − J2 (A:B:C),
D2 (A:B:C) = J3 (A:B:C) − J2 (A:B:C) , (22)
5
correlations can be simulated by an ensemble where all
three subsystems are correlated to each other for all time
instances is not possible. In contrast, correlations sim-
ulated by a hybrid nonlocal-local ensemble, captured by
inequalities (19), may exist for time instances close to the
separable state, however, only for the electron-neutrino
dynamics.
To sum up, except for small time regions neutrino oscil-
lations exhibit all the strong correlations, entanglement
and Bell-type nonlocality, that are considered to give an
advantage to quantum theory over classical theories for
a number of information processing tasks. For complete-
ness, in the next section we investigate the behavior of a
measure of nonclassicality weaker than entanglement.
C. Dissension-a measure of nonclassicality
Classical mutual information, quantifying the informa-
tion between two random variables A and B, can be
defined
P by I(A:B) = H(A) − H(A|B), where H(A) =
− i pi log pi is the Shannon entropy of the probabilities
p of the outcomes of A and H(A|B) := H(A) − H(A, B)
represents the classical conditional entropy and H(A, B)
is the joint entropy of the pair of random variables (A, B)
(see, e.g., Ref. [1]). Mutual information can be general-
ized for three random variables A, B, C by any of the
following three equivalent expressions [38]
(21)
where Ji are the quantum analogs of classical tripartite
mutual information Ii , Eq. (21), namely
J1 (A:B:C) = S(A, B) − S(B|ΠA ) − S(A|ΠB ) − S(A|ΠC )
− S(B|ΠC ) + S(A, B|ΠC ),
J2 (A:B:C) = S(A) + S(B) + S(C)
− S(A, B) − S(A, C) − S(B, C) + S(A, B, C),
J3 (A:B:C) = S(A) + S(B) + S(C) − S(A, B) − S(A, C)
+ S(A|ΠB,C ) . (23)
Here S(A|ΠB ) = k pk S(ρA|ΠB
P
k
) with
B B B
ρA|ΠBk
= (Π ρ Π
k AB k )/p k and pk ≡ Tr(Πk ρAB ) is the
probability that outcome k is obtained. It is assumed
that the basis of ΠB
k is chosen such as to minimize the
uncertainty. A given state is denoted to be nonclassical
for any departure of D1 or D2 from 0. Here D1 and D2
deviations from zero can be associated to nonclassicality
 6

2.75 2.75 2.75

2.5 2.5 2.5
2.25 2.25 2.25
2 2 2
1.75 1.75 1.75
1.5 1.5 1.5
1.25 1.25 1.25
1 1 1
0.75 0.75 0.75
0.5 0.5 0.5
0.25 0.25 0.25
~L/E ~L/E ~L/E
π 3π 5π 7π 9π π 3π 5π 7π 9π π 3π 5π 7π 9π

(a) 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2 (b) 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2 (c) 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2

FIG. 2: Plot the (not-normalized) flavour entropy Sflavor , Eq. (14), for the three initial flavour states (a) νe , (b) νµ , (c)ντ in
terms of the distance traveled per energy L/E in units of the oscillation period of the two lightest neutrinos. The horizontal
(dotted) line corresponds to the value of the W -state.

1 1 1

0.75 0.75 0.75

0.5 0.5 0.5

0.25 0.25 0.25

~L/E ~L/E ~L/E

π 3π 5π 7π 9π π 3π 5π 7π 9π π 3π 5π 7π 9π

(a) 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2 (b) 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2 (c) 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2

FIG. 3: Plot of the criterion Q1Dicke detecting genuine multipartite entanglement, Eq. (16), optimized over local unities for the
three initial flavour states (a) νe , (b) νµ , (c)ντ with respect to the distance traveled per energy L/E in units of the oscillation
period of the two lightest neutrinos (300 data points). The criterion detects genuine multipartite entanglement if greater than
zero and is maximal (= 1) only for the W -state.

4.35 4.35
4.35

4.3 4.3
4.30
4.25 4.25
4.25
4.2 4.2
4.20
4.15 4.15
4.15
4.1 4.1
4.10

4 4 4.05

~L/E ~L/E 4.00

π 3π 5π 7π 9π π 3π 5π 7π 9π

(a) 0 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2 (b) 0 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2 (c) 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8

FIG. 4: Plot of the Svetlichny criteria detecting genuine multipartite nonlocality, Eq. (19), optimized over possible bipartitions
and optimized over all six different observables for the three initial flavour states (a) νe , (b) νµ , (c)ντ as a function of the
distance traveled per energy L/E in units of the oscillation period of the two lightest neutrinos (300 data points). The criterion
detects genuine multipartite nonlocality if the value is above 4.

3 3 3

2.5 2.5 2.5

2 2 2

~L/E ~L/E ~L/E

π 3π 5π 7π 9π π 3π 5π 7π 9π π 3π 5π 7π 9π

(a) 0 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2 (b) 0 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2 (c) 0 2
π 2
2π 2
3π 2
4π 2

FIG. 5: Plot of the maximum of M a and M b , Eq. (20), optimized over all involved operators for the three initial flavour states
(a) νe , (b) νµ , (c) ντ in terms of the distance traveled per energy L/E in units of the oscillation period of the two lightest
neutrinos (300 data points). The criterion is above two if and only if no hidden variable model exists.

accessed by only one-mode or two-mode measurements,
respectively.
We find that J2 is always zero, since S(A, B, C) is
zero because the total state is pure and since S(A) =
S(B, C), S(B) = S(A, C), S(C) = S(A, B), this being
a particularity of the W class of states. Furthermore,
any permutation of the entropy S(A|ΠB,C ) = 0 is zero,
since any projection onto the two-mode subspace gives a
pure state which has zero uncertainty. Consequently, the
relevant measures reduce in our case to
 variable theories and non-classical correlations revealed
D1 (Ψα ) =
S(e, µ) − S(e, Πµ ) − S(e, Πτ ) − S(µ, Πe ) − S(µ, Πτ ),
S(e, τ ) − S(e, Πµ ) − S(e, Πτ ) − S(τ, Πe ) − S(τ, Πµ ),
S(µ, τ ) − S(µ, Πe ) − S(µ, Πτ ) − S(τ, Πe ) − S(τ, Πµ ) ,
 i.e., the flavor entropy and the criterion detecting gen-
D2 (Ψα ) = S(e), S(µ), S(τ ) . (24)
Here the three terms in the bracket of D1 refer to the
single electron-neutrino, single muon-neutrino and sin-
gle tau-neutrino mode measurements, respectively. The
three terms in the bracket of D2 refer to joint bipar-
tite measurements in the muon-tau, electron-tau, muon-
electron mode subspace, respectively (which are mini-
mized to zero).
In Fig. 6 we plot the dissensions D1 , D2 minimized
over all projective measurements for the time evolution
of an initial electron-neutrino. The first notable point
is that both measures are very sensitive to whether the
nonclassicality is accessed by single or bipartite mea-
surements and both measures are non-zero for almost
all times. Interestingly, we find that for both measures
min D1 , min D2 and all measurement types there are time
regions for which the value exceeds the corresponding
value for the W -state, which has (min D1 , min D2 ) =
(−1.738, 0.918). For single measurements dissension D1
is still considerably smaller than the values for the GHZ
state (min D1 = −3), in contrast to D2 where min D2 =
1. Moreover, a strong “twin-humped” pattern of D2 in
the time evolution is found for joint measurements in the
subspace of the two heavier neutrinos showing the exis-
tence of the third neutrino flavour (τ ).
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IV. CONCLUSIONS AND OUTLOOK
To sum up, we have computed several information the-
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We have analysed in detail the dynamics of initial neu-
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The weak force, being one of the four known funda-
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Acknowledgments
B.C. gratefully thanks the Austrian Science Fund
(FWF-26783).
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1
~L/E
π 3π 5π 7π 0.92
2
π 2
2π 2
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4π

0.75
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0.5
-1

0.25
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~L/E
-2 π 3π 5π 7π
0 π 2π 3π 4π
(a) (b) 2 2 2 2

FIG. 6: Plots of the dissensions, Eq. (24), minimized over all projective measurements for the time evolution of an initial νe as
a function of the distance per energy L/E: (a) single-mode measure D1 and (b) two-mode measure D2 . The colors encode the
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